Ethan Persoff

An Armchair Analysis of Teen-Age Booby Trap: 1970 US Government Comic Book on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs
by Ethan Persoff

Part One: Introduction

There’s an old joke played with food, popular with kids. Goes like this: You hand someone a piece of something to eat and just as they are about to take a bite, you say a word completely opposite to what they’re about to taste. Example can be handing them a piece of creamy chocolate, and saying the word: ‘Glue’ or ‘Toenails’ right as they are chewing. It works every time. The brain struggles for half a second, and the experience of tasting is affected. This form of tampering is not just child’s play. It is a highly effective means of affecting somebody’s experience before they attempt consuming something.

Imagine reading a food review saying a restaurant got you sick. Would you eat there? For over fifty years the US government has played this suggestive food game again and again, creating a number of pieces of dishonest art and text about the consumption of mind-altering drugs. The high-water mark for both cautionary messaging and artwork can be found in a little known (but highly sought-after) comic book produced in 1970 by the US Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs, entitled Teenage Booby Trap. Scans of this entire document are available at http://www.ep.tc/teenageboobytrap/

Here is a 1960/1961 pro segregation comic book commissioned directly by George Wallace during his campaign for governor of Alabama. This booklet is credited as one of the principle reasons Wallace won the gubernatorial election, later allowing him to become one of the South’s most iconic and hostile voices against intergration and civil rights. George Wallace for the Big Job is also one of the most covered up pieces of comic book history, as most copies were destroyed or hidden away. We present it now, all sixteen pages, in full, for the official and permanent record. Here’s the first page:

[Editor’s Note — According to Wikipedia: “In the late 1970s Wallace became a born-again Christian, and in the same era apologized to black civil rights leaders for his earlier segregationist views, calling these views wrong. (more…)

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Welcome to the Art of the Prank, produced and edited by Joey Skaggs. Here you will find insights, information, news and discussions about art, pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming & reality hacking around the world - past, present and future - mainstream and counter culture. You are invited to contribute to its development. May your journey be filled with more than your expectations.

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